€50m State car contract will be canary for green policies
CLIMATE change never quite became the hot topic in the run-in to the election that many thought it would. It was largely squeezed out by more immediate topics such as housing and healthcare, not to mention the heat and fire generated by Sinn Féin’s surge in the polls.
But the thing about climate change is that, talk about it or don’t talk about it, it is happening relentlessly and is sure to present major challenges to whichever parties manage to harness the mandate they receive as the ballot boxes are counted this morning.
In potentially one of his last acts as a minister, Paschal Donohoe, through the Office of Government Procurement, last week issued a tender invitation seeking a supplier of cars and pick-up trucks for a contract that, according to documents, may be worth €50m over 10 years.
That, of course, will have been of great interest to car suppliers. But it may also interest those who want to measure how much of what the new government says about its green agenda is spin and how much of it is real.
Vehicles will be ordered by public sector bodies, including the Defence Forces, An Garda Síochána, the Prison Service, the health service, Government departments, local authorities and educational institutions. Vehicles supplied under the contract can be fuelled by diesel, unleaded petrol, electricity, compressed natural gas, hydrogen, or any other energy source developed during the term of the contract.
Just what fuel mix is chosen by the wider public sector will go a long way to signposting where things are really at with ambitious preelection targets for low-emission transport.